HOSPITALS, THEIR ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION 481 



three hospitals in Eome during his pontificate, and these were main- 

 tained and additional ones built by his successors. But Stephen II. 

 surpassed his predecessors in the eighth century by restoring four an- 

 cient institutions and building three new ones. 



The Arabs, speedily changing from a barbaric army to a cultivated 

 and civilized people through their contact with Greek thought in the 

 countries conquered by them, were not long in proving their enlighten- 

 ment by the standard of hospital building. The first Arabian hospital 

 was built at Damascus a.d. 707 by the Caliph el Welid. Virtually the 

 real rise of Arabian science came with the accession to power of the 

 Abbasides (a.d. 750). The Arab by this time was a mixed nation, in 

 which the Persian element seemed to predominate. Hospitals under 

 medical supervision were not uncommon, although infirmaries predom- 

 inated. Nuburger states that infirmaries existed in no less than fourteen 

 cities, including Bagdad, Antioch, Jericho, Medina, Mecca — in short, 

 throughout the entire empire. The part played by pilgrimages to places 

 of devotion among Christian nations in the evolution of the hospital 

 was perhaps even more pronounced among the followers of Mohammed. 

 Clinical teaching was done in several of the large hospitals of Da- 

 mascus, special attention being given to medicine and diseases of the 

 eye. The hospital, mosque and orphanage founded by al Munsur in 

 the thirteenth century was one of the most notable Arabian charitable 

 institutions and is said to have had a staff of forty-two physicians. 



Probably the earliest hospital in France was the " Xenodochium " 

 for pilgrims, established by King Childebert in the sixth century. The 

 practise of making pilgrimages to the shrines and holy places was a 

 custom of the pious coming more and more into vogue, and the mon- 

 arch's action was a much-needed charity to the sick and weary travelers. 

 The Council of Orleans (549) gave this establishment hearty approval. 



Many hospitals arose in France during this and the succeeding cen- 

 tury. For at just this period the Franklish empire, more than any 

 other European country, was slowly tending toward the conditions 

 which made it eventually a nation of city dwellers, dimly foreshadowing 

 what came later with the establishment of industries, the foundation 

 of guilds and the influence of trade and commerce on national life. At 

 Autin, at Athis, at Paris, Aries and Eheims, we have records of the 

 establishment of hospitals by kings, nobles and churchmen. The oldest 

 hospital in the world still enduring, the famous Hotel Dieu, is attrib- 

 uted to Landry, Bishop of Paris, and its origin has been variously 

 placed between a.d. 660 and 800. Lallemand's "Histoire de la Charite" 7 

 finds the first extant written mention of it in a document of 829. This 

 began as a cathedral hospital, and was one of a group of institutions 

 growing up about the old churches, which, developing into small com- 



■"'L'Histoire de la Charite," II., 112, Paris, 1902. 



VOL. LXXXII.— 33. 



